Faith & Popular Culture

One starting point for reflecting on our faith is the culture/s around us. Film is a big part of that, as is television, music and all of the Arts! Here you'll find reviews, websites, ideas for using popular culture and random crunchy moments from the world of faith and life.

If one aspect of great art is an ability to enable us to deal with interior questions, then the genre of science fiction fits neatly. Whether in print or on the screen, science fiction has always had a capacity to deal with larger issues, sometimes in a way that other narrative based modes could not.

2017 has well and truly started and we’ve seen some great films released already (LaLa Land anyone?) But you might have missed these in the heady rush of 2016. Look out for them on DVD or through your streaming service of choice...

Carpenter Daniel Blake is a survivor. He’s had to be; his wife has died leaving him bereft but he must go on. Even a heart attack couldn’t stop him. But one thing just might: being caught between the fangs of a welfare bureaucracy that seems constructed to rob him of his self-respect and means of living.

Read this sentence: In Texas, two brothers, one just trying to do the honourable thing, one just a little wild (and doomed to a dark end) stage bank jobs whilst being pursued by a day-before-retirement lawman. It sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it? Yet Hell of High Water takes that simple plot and...

It can be easy to sum up the work of Spanish director Almodovar in a few words: Gaudy, loud, controversial, melodramatic. Yet Julieta confirms new strings to the director’s bow while maintaining some links with his past.

Whilst some may claim The Beatles: Eight Days a Week tells us nothing new, that's churlish in the extreme. The Spotify generation for whom music is a digital abstraction deserve to experience the cheek, the chemistry, the wonder of The Beatles in full flight, on stage, in the studio and before the press where their wit is infectious. With more personality than any current chart toppers can muster, Ron Howard's Eight Days a Week captures a musical, social and cultural phenomenon with joy and wonderful verve.

During a Marrakesh holiday to rekindle a fractured relationship, Perry (Ewan McGregor) and Gail (Naomie Harris) make acquaintance with loud Russian, Dima (Stellan Skarsgard). University lecturer Perry in particular falls under Dima’s spell, yet it is his desire to do the right thing that has him agreeing to...

Add one measure of Pixar’s Up and a few teaspoons of Thelma and Louise and you are on your way to understanding the recipe for New Zealand writer/director’s Taika Waititi’s latest film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople. If that’s baffling, think on-the-run buddy movie with odd couple protagonists. The results? A lot of laughs!

Ever sat in church during the bible readings and felt pictures forming in your mind’s eye as you listen? I don’t mean daydreaming about what chores you need to do when you get home! No, I mean mental images of the goings-on in the bible readings themselves; imagining the events as they happened. If you’re like me that happens almost every week. And more often than not, these pictures come to me from cinematic depictions of the narratives.

David Hockney’s famous pop art painting of understatement and stillness, A Bigger Splashprovides the name for this remake of the 1969 French film La Piscine which starred Alain Delon. Hockney’s painting, a masterpiece of restrained motion and clinical design couldn’t be further from the French original that revitalised Romy Schneider’s career. So where does this new version fit in?

Doing some research into resources for preparation for Confirmation, I was reminded of this project a number of us worked on a little while back. Developed by a group of Brisbane Anglicans, this series of engaging and thought provoking videos exploring...

Harking back to a simpler age, Brooklyn is film-making in the classic style: a well told story with beautiful performances that touches the heart and leaves you with some things to think about. But what are those?

For a generation weaned on Game of Thrones, Justin Kurzel’s new version of Macbeth comes along at just the right time. Where that show’s author, George R R Martin seemingly gets more than his fair share of plot twists from the likes of Shakespeare, this version of the Scottish play takes a lean, bleak approach that matches the icy decline of its two main characters.

Ruben Guthrie (Patrick Brammall) is a successful advertising executive engaged to a beautiful foreign model and living the high life in Sydney. That high life consists of alcohol fuelled days and nights where blackouts are common and leaping from the roof of your apartment into the pool seems like a good idea. It’s after one such leap goes badly that Ruben’s girlfriend (Abby Lee) leaves him with a broken arm and a challenge: if he can go without alcohol for a year, she will be willing to see him again.

When film makers make a pitch to the studio executives, old clichés are often used to describe what the intended film will be like: “It’s a coming of age tale set in a utopian community where a young man begins to suspect the leader is not a paragon of virtue.”Partisan could have been pitched that way., but it takes this idea and spins it on its head...

Alex Garland is an accomplished novelist, scriptwriter and with Ex Machina he turns his attention to direction.He did the script too, so let’s assume he’s a bit of a show off.Fortunately he’s done a terrific job with both roles in this film out now.